


Jar of Hearts

by alteanroyals



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, also slight kidge if you squint, have some neighbour shallura fluff, it took me 7 months but i finally finished this thing, perseverance is key my friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 21:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19912237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteanroyals/pseuds/alteanroyals
Summary: Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.Years of military training for nothing. He had faced criminals, rebels, and even extremely dangerous terrorists.But he couldn’t, for the life of his, open the cookie jar.The fact that his right arm wasn’t attached to his body was most likely part of the problem. But Shiro liked to think that a twenty-eight-year-old man with military background could still open a cookie jar despite not having his dominant arm.Turned out he was wrong. Very very wrong.





	Jar of Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, it is I, the one with 2 other unfinished fics but still spends 7 months writing another oneshot yay. Btw let's pretend all the medical and military things i mention here are correct for the sake of my fic and my heart ♡

Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

Years of military training for _nothing_. He had faced criminals, rebels, and even extremely dangerous terrorists.

But he couldn’t, for the life of his, open the cookie jar.

The fact that his right arm wasn’t attached to his body was most likely part of the problem. But Shiro liked to think that a twenty-eight-year-old man with military background could still open a cookie jar despite not having his dominant arm.

Turned out he was wrong. Very very wrong.

The damn lid was sealed shut by the devil himself. And in this case, the devil was Shiro’s past self who still possessed both arms and thought it was a good idea to close the cookie jar with as much strength as possible so no unwanted bugs could get in while he left for a mission.

Now, a month and a half later, sitting defeated on the kitchen floor with his arm missing and an unopened cookie jar on his lap, Shiro decided it had been a terrible idea.

He had been sent out of the country to lead a military mission, something he was pretty accustomed to by now. For a while everything had ran smoothly, until the moment it didn’t. His camp had been raided at night, when nobody expected it. The whole place had been set on fire, but they had been quick enough and managed to find a way out. Shiro had stayed behind to make sure all of his men got out safely, but once the last man had exited the tent and Shiro turned to leave behind him, a large tree branch that had caught on fire fell on his right side and knocked him to the ground. To top it all, he had hit his head so hard that he fell unconscious. By the time his men found him, it was too late. The flames had engulfed his arm entirely and there was no salvation for it.

He’d been sent back to America after that, and immediately taken to a hospital. The doctors had said that because of the damage caused by both the tree branch and the flames, the best option was to amputate the arm, ending his military career in the process. After the surgery, Shiro had stayed for a couple of weeks at the hospital recovering and feeling sorry for himself.

This was his first night home since he’d been released from the hospital and after weeks of not tasting real food, all Shiro wanted was some of his favorite cookies. But life clearly had other plans for him.

It was time for Plan B: _asking Billy_.

Billy lived across the hall from Shiro’s apartment and despite not knowing much about him, he seemed like a pretty decent guy. They had fallen into conversation once or twice the few times they’d happened to run into each other, which wasn’t very often given Shiro’s busy work schedule.

He really wasn’t in the mood to explain to his next door neighbour the story about how he lost his right arm but… he _really_ wanted those cookies.

_Oh, fuck it._

Shiro got up from the kitchen floor, grabbed the offensive cookie jar and headed towards Billy’s apartment down the hall. He looked through the keyhole and could tell that the light was on. Billy was home. His savior was home.

He knocked on the door and waited until he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Shiro knew how ridiculous he probably looked in that moment and looked down at the floor in order to avoid direct eye contact and make things even more awkward than they already were. The moment Shiro heard the door opening he started rambling with the most pathetic and deflated tone he had ever heard coming from his mouth.

“Hey, Billy. I know it’s 10 pm and you are probably busy and I am so so sorry to bother you right now but I really want to eat some cookies and I can’t open the stupid jar because I am a dumbass and I am extremely tired. So could you pleaaaase open this cookie jar for me?”

Shiro looked up and almost dropped the jar to the floor. Instead of finding Billy in the dimly lit threshold, his eyes landed upon the only woman in the entire world that could look beautiful while wearing pink crocs and animal print socks. She had dark skin, sparkling blue eyes, and long wavy white hair which, for some reason that Shiro wasn’t going to question, looked perfectly natural on her.

Her confused face brought him back to the present and Shiro remembered his quest for cookies.

“You are not Billy.”

“Ummm no, I am not. Billy doesn’t live here anymore,” the mysterious woman said in a heavy British accent.

“Oh, I am uhhh terribly sorry for the inconvenience… I’ll get going now. Have a good night!” And with that, Shiro turned to leave and never ever come back, until he heard her voice calling for him.

“Wait! I may not be Billy, but I can still help if you want.”

It sounded like she truly wanted to help him, and Shiro wasn’t about to turn her down, despite how embarrassed he felt by the entire situation. He slowly turned around to face her and smiled apologetically.

“Hi.”

_You are an idiot, Shiro._

“Hi, my name is Allura. I moved here two weeks ago.” She almost offered her hand in greeting but Shiro noticed the exact moment she realized he couldn’t shake her hand given that his only arm was holding a cookie jar. He didn’t comment on it, and neither did she. Shiro was grateful for that.

“Right, yeah, I haven’t been around for some time and I clearly missed a couple of things. I’m Takashi, but you can call me Sh-”

“Shiro, right?” Allura asked with recognition in her voice, “Billy mentioned you.”

“Yes, that’s correct. Should I be afraid that you know things about me while I know nothing about you?” He asked jokingly, succeeding in getting a laugh out of his pretty neighbour in pajamas.

“Not really, unless you blast loud obnoxious music at 3 am every night. In that case, you should be very afraid of me.”

_Sassy. Good._

“Well, there goes my plan for the night.” Shiro said faking disappointment.

“Oof, that’s rough buddy,” Allura played along, “is there any way I can make your night less miserable?” She put her hand over her heart as if feigning compassion.

Shiro suddenly remembered that he had come here to get the damn jar open and not to flirt with the British beauty standing in front of him.

“Well, I do have a cookie jar right here that is causing me quite a problem,” Shiro said as he lifted the cookies that both of them forgot he’d been holding.

“Oh, right! Let me help you with that.” Allura stepped closer to him and took the jar from his hand.

From this distance, Shiro could notice some details about his new neighbour that he couldn’t before. What most intrigued him were the almost identical crescent shaped birthmarks under her eyes. They were just a tad bit lighter than her skin color, but still noticeable up close.

Shiro thought they looked like cute little moons that matched her silver hair. Her very soft silver hair. Or at least it looked soft.

_What conditioner does she use? Would it be weird to ask her that? Yes, of course it would be weird, Shiro what the fuc-_

“Wow, you really did a number on this thing.”

Shiro’s train of thought was interrupted by Allura’s voice, which made him focus his attention on her face rather than her surprisingly distracting hair. Allura’s brow was forrowed and her tongue was sticking out in concentratrion. Shiro had to hold back laughter because it was honestly an adorable sight. He could tell that she was struggling with the jar, but in a matter of seconds she had managed to open the cursed thing.

“Done,” Allura said wearing a proud smile and handing the jar back to him, “your biscuits have been freed.”

“Thank you so much, Allura. Really. I am sorry if I bothered y-”

“Nonsense! As you can see by my looks, I wasn’t doing anything important except making good use of my Netflix account,” Allura said with a proud smile.

Shiro laughed as his mind conjured an image of Allura binge-watching a show at 3 am in the dark, with a blanket and ice-cream. It put a smile on his face too. He hadn’t binge-watched a show in so long and he missed it. In the past four weeks, Shiro’s primal source of entertainment had been the TV he had in his hospital room which, actually, hadn’t been that bad. He’d managed to catch several top-tier movies, like Shrek 2 and The Princess Bride, but he missed the thrill of watching an entire season of a show in less than 24 hours.

Shiro could have asked Keith to bring him his laptop back from his apartment, but he was currently on a trip to Italy with Pidge, visiting her family. If it had been up to Shiro, Keith wouldn’t have even found out about his arm until he came back from his trip. Shiro hadn’t wanted to ruin their fun and make Keith worry about something that had no solution, but as it turned out, Keith was Shiro’s emergency contact, so the hospital had informed him of Shiro’s situation anyway.

Keith did not take it too well.

He’d almost booked a plane ticket to come home early, but Shiro and Pidge (mostly Pidge) had been able to convince him that Shiro was an adult who could take care of himself and that there was nothing that Keith could do to fix the situation. But Shiro knew he wouldn’t stop worrying about him any time soon. Despite the guilt Shiro felt, he was eternally grateful to have someone that cared for him in the way Keith did. He was family.

“Well, I personally think Netflix is of utmost importance. May I be so bold as to ask what were you watching?”

Her smile disappeared faster than Lance could get rejected by a girl, and was replaced by a look of surprise and embarrassment.

_Got ya, Netflix Princess._

“Ooooh I know that look. The ‘I am watching something embarassing’ look. But it’s okay, you can keep your secre-”

“Avatar.”

_Oh_

Shiro didn’t expect her to actually tell him given that it was late, she barely knew him, and probably thought he was strange and nosy. Allura could easily slam the door on his face and he wouldn’t blame her one bit. But here she was, in her pajamas, answering questions for her new armless cookie lover neighbour. Bet she didn’t see that one coming.

Now that the shock of her answer had vanished, it was time for the most important question.

“Blue people or Last Airbender?”

The look of complete horror and offense that overtook her face because of his question was enough to make him smile and giggle like the idiot he is.

“Ta _ **KASHI!**_ How DARE you insinuate I have that bad of a taste in entertainment?!” she said in an exagerate way which made her accent even more notorious. “Do you really think I look like a Blue People Avatar kind of girl??” Allura asked feigning annoyance and gesturing at herself for emphasis.

At that, Shiro looked at her, _really_ looked at her. And that’s when his brain broke.

“I think you look pretty.”

Allura’s entire body froze up and for a minute Shiro considered talking in Japanese to throw her off and run as fast as possible until he crossed the border to Canada.

_FILTER, SHIRO. **FILTER**._

_Hello! My name is Boo Boo the Fool!_

He was preparing his Japanese speech in his head but was interrupted by an Allura doubling over with laughter clutching the thereshold to stop herself from falling.

Shiro was even more terrified than he had been a few seconds ago. That laugh could either mean “wow you really think you have a shot with me” or “you are such a pathetic man with no salvation” or anything in between.

He stood there, panicking silently, while Allura tried to regain her composure so as to not laugh in his face when she faced him again.

“Oh boy… Billy forgot to mention how funny you are.”

Shiro had expected dumb, idiot, shameless even; but funny? He didn’t know how to work with funny.

“Ha, yeah uhh that’s _definitely_ me.” He managed an awkward smile to try and hide his confusion. This woman was either pretending to put up with him out of pity or maybe he wasn’t as big of a mess as he had initially thought. Shiro desperately hoped it was the latter.

Just then, the sound of the elevator going up interrupted Shiro’s thoughts and reminded him of how late it was.

“Oh shoot, it’s so late. I am truly sorry I bothered you at this hour for something so dumb.”

“Nonsense, I am glad I could be of help. Biscuits are never dumb,” she stated with fake seriousness in her voice. “And I,” she continued as she started to nervously rub her elbow, “I had fun. Talking to you, just now, I mean.”

“Me too, actually.” And it was true, he realized. When was the last time a conversation hadn’t made him want to run away or punch something? “And if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, just mention it.”

A curious and dangerous smile crept upon Allura’s face. “Anything?”

“Yeah, as long as it doesn’t involve opening any jars,” Shiro answered innocently, completely unprepared for what Allura was going to say next.

“Great, then you will be my Book 3 of Avatar partner. Next Saturday night. At 7. You know where I live.”

“I…”

“Is there any problem, Shiro?”

Absolutely none. For the first time in a while there was no problem at all.

“No.” He smiled sincerely. “Book 3 it is.”

“Great!” Allura’s confident smile striked once again as she stole one of his cookies from the jar. “See you around, neighbour.”

And with that, she was gone, leaving him staring at her closed door like an idiot until he finally decided to head back to his apartment.

Shiro had just gotten a date with the most beautiful woman ever because of a wonderfully stubborn cookie jar.

Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

**Author's Note:**

> Is it believable that my strong boi Shiro can't open a jar? Probably not.  
> Do I care? Not in the slightest.


End file.
